Social Factors In Literature

Naturally, social factors affected reading and writing in the Roman world. A society is defined by its inhabitant’s ability to read and write, and the literature they create. This essay will explore a variety of social factors such as education, social status, gender, and wealth and how they contributed to the development of different kinds of writings, such as colloquial graffiti and well-educated literature. People’s access to education has a direct link to their ability to read and write, and what they accomplish with this ability. A person’s gender affects the social factors they are affected by, such as their access to education and their societal status. Their social status determines their access to resources that makes writing available

They had a level of literacy called ‘functional literacy’, with the ability to read these simple inscriptions upon walls(Winsbury, Rex. 2009 , p.115). Yet, those very people were not the ones writing literature of a more complex level, because they did not have the level of education required to write in such a way. This is supported by Winsbury(2009, p. 115), stating: ”But that level of partial, everyday and far from universal literacy would have been quite inadequate for unravelling the deliberately complex and allusive literary texts so beloved of Roman authors.” Their level of education was high enough to allow the ability to read and write, but in a simpler and less impactful or intelligent manner than what was considered ‘adequate’ to understand and interpret higher forms of literature. They used their ‘functional literacy’ to read inscriptions on monuments and official documents in a public square but not much else(Winsbury, Rex., 2009, p. 115). Virgil, considered one of the greatest poets of the Roman world, received formal education for a variety of subjects from the age of five. He went on to create literary masterpieces, the creation of which can be attributed to his innate talent, which could be realised due to his access to

The social class of a person was a major factor in the ability to create more intelligent and comprehensive pieces of literature from poetry to history writings. For example, history writers were primarily members of the elite senatorial class or held senior positions in the army and administration (Winsbury, Rex, 2009, p. 143). This points to the fact that perhaps only people of the higher class were; educated, or permitted to write such intellectual works, or that only their works held any merit, while writers of the lower class were dismissed. This also supports the previous point that education was an integral part in the creation of different forms of literature. In this case, well-learned individuals had the ability to create complex pieces of literature due to their education, which is directly related to their status in society. Through this, the argument could be made that it was the higher classes of society who shaped the society they inhabited. They had the power to shape the voice of society, they had the ability to record its history through their own eyes for future civilisations, and they had the power to directly affect the daily lives of the lower classes, through law making for